Zipper99

I am killing myself with stress and anxiety. I'm having moderately stressful problems at my work. When I start to think about them my mind takes them to the worst extreme outcome. Me losing business and job and broke on street and my kids won't want to be around me. Complete failure.
This sounds silly but I haven't slept right in almost a week and I feel like a mess. At 3am it sure feels real.
I know I need to get serious about going to a counselor. As I get older I seem to be getting worse and this, as well as about 5 other items I identify with from acoa characteristics isn't going away on its own.
I know there isn't a quick fix but does anyone have a helpful hint or trick or thought? I'm not having a breakdown and I'd never harm myself but I will say I don't want to feel like this any more and I understand others'desperation.
Meds are out. Tried a few over the years and never found one that I could live with side effects.

biminiblue

I know this may come off as insensitive considering you posted in the Adult Children of Alcoholics, but are you drinking yourself, or smoking pot or doing other drugs?

All the things you describe - circular thinking, anxiety, 3AM fear wake-ups, depression, catastrophizing, are all things I experienced when I drank. When I stopped drinking and dealt with my stressors, it eventually all stopped. In your case, it could be depression. Have you tried counseling or ACOA meetings? Exercise? Meditation?

Zipper99

I drink, yes. A few evenings a week.

I can stop and see if that helps. I don't need to drink. Not problem drinker.

I decided to skip the afternoon coffee too thinking it might be a factor. I know I'll fall asleep tonight because I'm exhausted. Hopefully won't get up at 3

Thanks.

Zipper99

I exercise. I have gone to a counselor but not regularly enough to bring lasting change. I'm realizing this is something you work on long term. Not just when it rears its ugly head.

biminiblue

It doesn't take a lot of alcohol to mess with your brain. Especially if you are genetically linked to alcoholism. Everything you described is exactly how I felt when I drank, and I wasn't always a big drinker - but it didn't take much. That 3AM thing and catastrophizing are classic - you hear it from drinkers all the time.

It took a couple months before it started to die down and I got good eight-hour continuous sleep on a regular basis. I also really tightened up my nutrition which helped a lot. It took me a good year before all those symptoms you mentioned went away completely. It's a nasty drug.

Zipper99

I think you may be right on.

I do usually have a drink or two a few nights a week. Because I met friends out then was on a mini vacation I doubled what I'd normally drink in a week. About the same time I did get stressful news about work but it seems like it just exploded on me.

I'll stop the drinks and cut coffee in 1/2 and get to bed an hour earlier for a week and see where I'm headed.

I looked up aca meetings in my area but can't get to them.

I've also approached my counselor about working the 12 steps with her but never really got a positive response or structured response. Any ideas on finding a therapist specifically because of wanting to use aca material? Should be a concept that any professional is familiar with right?

biminiblue

It's likely it will take alcohol abstinence for longer than a week or two. Jus' sayin'. The brain takes a long time to heal from alcohol. I'd give it six months.

Maybe spend some time reading in the alcoholism forum here. There is a lot of information on this site about healing from alcohol. You don't have to be a fall-down-every-day drunk for it to affect you. I would start here: http://www.soberrecovery.com/forums/...influence.html it's the science-y version - I think you'll get a lot out of it.

As far as meetings or counselling...you might try googling Celebrate Recovery - they are pretty widespread too, and may be of help. It is more church based but also more recovery in general, not just alcohol or drugs. I believe it approaches the whole person and family (from my understanding, I haven't used it.)

Counselors...I don't know about the steps, that is strictly an AA thing (and its spin-offs, like ACOA/ACA, AlAnon, OA, GA etc.) - but a good counselor will work with the same basic concepts; just maybe without using the Higher Power language. A lot of counselors are strictly secular. I would imagine if you read the ACOA/ACA literature you would be able to adapt any counseling to fit the program and the steps on your own. The steps aren't magic, they are basic spiritual concepts and any good counselor should be at least familiar with the approach. Whether they would be comfortable walking you through it is another matter. I just can't see a secular counselor wanting to do that.

Aithyne

Even after I quit drinking, and as a child, I catastrophize. When something happens, or I think it might happen, or I think about confrontation I always go worst case scenario. I always have. I get the anxiety about my life, my children's lives, my dad's life....Huge what ifs that aren't likely to happen. I have the worst self-esteem in the world. My biggest fear is failure. I was afraid of failing nursing school (didn't happen). Now I am afraid of failing as a nurse....as a mother because I had a crappy example. I am always afraid that my children will find some reason to hate me, even though I work hard to ensure we have good relationships.

And, I perseverate. It's so bad. I think about things, small slights. For the longest time. What I could have/should have said. Or work things, I always bring home work troubles. Could I have made that person happier? Should I have called the md sooner? I even still have nightmares about waiting tables and I haven't done that in 8 years!!!!!

From the little bit I have decided to research in the last 24 hours to try to get out of my dysfunctional mindset; I think this is part of being an adult child of an addict....learned behaviors and thought processes and not necessarily related to our own addictive behaviors....But....what do I know. I am just now learning this stuff.

D122y

Zipper,

There is no problem drinking can't make worse. When i fully detoxed and normalized to my current state, the world seemed to change.

So much less stress. Now I laugh in the face of adversity that used to spin me up.